Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)

BWC Protocol Bulletin, November 1, 2001

By Jenni Rissanen

Preparations for Review Conference Intensify, US Lobbies Its Proposals

Preparations for the Fifth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), scheduled for November 19-December 7 in Geneva, have picked up speed this week at the UN First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in New York. Although the Committee has been operating in peculiar detachment from present realities - largely unaffected by the increasing number of deliberately-caused anthrax cases in the United States - briefings provided by the US BWC negotiating team in New York and elsewhere, and particularly President Bush's statement on November 1 on the regime against biological weapons (BW), have served as strong reminders of the forthcoming Conference. In addition, the Committee adopted a modest procedural decision on Wednesday (October 31) aimed at ensuring continued UN assistance in the implementation of the forthcoming Review Conference's decisions and recommendations. Statements made following the adoption of the decision by some Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries, participants in the Ad Hoc Group (AHG) negotiating a compliance Protocol to the BWC in Geneva, illustrated that negative feelings resulting from the US rejection on July 25 of both the draft Protocol and the AHG negotiating process have not yet evaporated. There are fears that some countries might come to the Review Conference with the overriding aim of trying to assign blame for the failed negotiations on the United States, regardless of the cost to the BWC regime. There will clearly be other challenges, as some western allies, while welcoming the proposals of the US President and negotiating team, nonetheless consider them inadequate compared to a legally-binding agreement on measures to strengthen the Convention.

The United States has taken the lead in actively preparing for the Conference. The word is that the head of the US AHG delegation, Ambassador Donald Mahley, and Avis Bohlen, Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, have been touring different capitals over the last two weeks, including Bonn, Brussels, Canberra, London, Ottawa, Paris, The Hague, and Tokyo, seeking to persuade key negotiating partners in the Western Group (WG) of the soundness of Washington's ideas. The US team also stopped in New York, where Mahley reportedly briefed the Western Group this Monday (October 29). Choosing a 'step-by-step' approach in introducing its ideas, starting with its closest allies, the US had been reluctant to disclose details to a wider audience, the official explanation being that it was still consulting, although others suggested less charitably it was protecting its proposals from public scrutiny. However, on November 1 - when the US team was thought to have concluded its tour of its western allies - Washington's ideas were somewhat unexpectedly made public, first in an article in the New York Times ("U.S. Seeks Changes in Germ War Pact", by Judith Miller) and later in an unprecedented statement by President Bush on the need to strengthen the BWC. These developments, particularly the latter, may mark the beginning of an international public relations campaign in advance of the Review Conference.

The President's statement, "Strengthening the International Regime Against Biological Weapons", is based on the identification of disease as the "deadliest enemy of mankind", making "no distinctions among people" and recognizing "no borders". Although biological weapons have been banned by the majority of countries for almost thirty years, the President noted, "the scourge of biological weapons has not been eradicated". Referring to events since September 11, Bush argued that the "threat is growing…real and extremely dangerous", adding that "rogue states and terrorists possess these weapons and are willing to use them". The strengthening of the BWC should form "part of a comprehensive strategy for combating the complex threats of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism". With this objective in mind, Bush listed a number of measures, ranging from investigations of treaty violations to a code of conduct for scientists, that the United States was proposing for all states parties. Lifting two elements from the draft compliance Protocol it rejected a few months ago, the President urged BWC states parties to " to enact strict national criminal legislation against prohibited BW activities with strong extradition requirements" and to "establish an effective United Nations procedure for investigating suspicious outbreaks or allegations of biological weapons use". Bush further urged them to "establish procedures for addressing BWC compliance concerns". According to the New York Times article, the US is envisaging a politically friendlier "voluntary mechanism" whereby countries could resolve compliance concerns by mutual consent, through exchanges of information and visits. Stressing the responsibilities of the scientific community in this field, Bush argued that states parties should "devise a solid framework for bioscientists in the form of a code of ethical conduct that would have universal recognition" and "promote responsible conduct in the study, use, modification, and shipment of pathogenic organisms" as well as "establish sound national oversight mechanisms for the security and genetic engineering of pathogenic organisms". Furthermore, bioscientists should "commit to improving international disease control and to enhance mechanisms for sending expert response teams to cope with outbreaks". The New York Times reported that under the US scheme, countries would also be asked to report any "releases or adverse events that could impact other countries".

The President announced that he had directed his administration "to consult with our friends and allies, as well as with Congress, industry, and non-governmental experts, on these proposals." The United States was looking forward "to hearing the new ideas on how best to achieve our common aim of eliminating biological weapons" and its goal was "to fashion an effective international approach to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention". Perhaps in an effort to pre-empt criticism of the proposals as welcome but inadequate, Bush acknowledged that the plan did "not constitute a complete solution to the use of pathogens and biotechnology for evil purposes". If the Convention could be strengthened in these ways against the threat of biological weapons, however, "we will contribute to the security of the people of the United States and mankind as a whole".

Although western delegations in New York have been reluctant to respond openly to the US proposals, it was generally felt they contained no surprises and thus warranted no strong reaction. It is acknowledged they will need to be received constructively for political reasons, particularly in the current circumstances of ongoing bioterrorism in the United States. However, the fact that many of the proposed measures are dependent on national implementation and/or are not legally-binding internationally is causing uncomfortable feelings among countries which have long championed the Protocol. Thus, they are likely to welcome the US proposals as a basis for further work at the Review Conference.

The pro-active US approach may have induced some much-needed momentum in other countries' preparations for the Conference. One modest step was taken with the October 31 adoption of the procedural decision. Hungary, the sponsor of the decision, departed from the past practice of tabling a substantive BWC resolution. Hungary did attempt to introduce such a resolution, but in the end opted for the safety of a decision when it became clear that some countries - thought to include the United States on one side and some 'hardline' NAM countries such as China, Cuba and Iran at the other - had conflicting views on what the resolution should say, particularly with respect to the AHG negotiations and the Group's mandate (see BWC Protocol bulletin, October 25, 2001). Only adopting a procedural decision this year - at the very time when the norm against biological weapons is being violated - adds to the feeling that the First Committee is failing to respond to the new situation. But it will be more important that the Review Conference responds effectively, as was suggested by Ambassador Tibor Tóth of Hungary, the Chair of the AHG, in the introduction of the decision on Tuesday (October 30). Stressing that although the draft decision, "because of its procedural nature, is not bringing to the surface the challenges posed to the international community by recent developments, those challenges are serious", Tóth said the real issues will need to be tackled in the near future, starting with the Review Conference.

Tóth, who will be President of the Conference, added that the meeting would "provide the right setting, that is the necessary time, discussion framework, structure and expertise, for addressing those challenges in a meaningful way and for trying to identify the path to be followed by the international community in the prevailing situation." He told the Committee that that this time, "due to the nature of the issues to be confronted, the Fifth Review Conference will have to penetrate much deeper in past and future than any of its predecessors." In addition, the Conference had before it another challenge, the recent incidents of anthrax use. Tóth had observed that the "daily news is forcing us to live with the notion that the use of these weapons are becoming a de facto part of our everyday life". However, he warned that "such a notion is slowly eroding all the prohibition layers, both politically and legally binding, as contained in the consensus final declarations of all the previous review conferences and in the Biological Weapons Convention itself. Moreover, at no time in recent history was there such a clear and real-time realization that the non-use norm was being violated". Tóth underlined that "action or lack of action" would "shape the future of the biological weapons prohibition regime much beyond the Fifth Review Conference". Thus, the Conference would need to reconfirm "the importance the international community attaches to the integrity of each and every prohibition norm" and "project appropriate measures, including possible verification measures to strengthen the BWC". The Conference would need to elaborate "follow up steps agreed upon through action" and "not accept the slow erosion of the norms that served us for decades, if not longer." Tóth concluded by saying that in light of the "political and public expectations we have no other viable choice but to overcome these challenges."

Some NAM countries and Russia voiced their disappointment over the fact that the annual consensus resolution had been downgraded to a procedural decision. There were ominous signs of persistent ill feelings caused by Washington's rejection of the Protocol. For example, China took the opportunity to point its finger at the United States. Without explicitly naming the US, China said it had hoped to see a resolution explaining why the AHG's negotiations had come "to an abrupt stop" in July: the whole approach to the Protocol had been "negated". China had also hoped to see a reconfirmation of the AHG mandate and a reference to the continuation of the Protocol negotiations. However, "resistance from certain quarters" had prevented such a resolution. Russia said it was "disappointed" about developments at the last session of the AHG in July/August. It had hoped for a substantive resolution mentioning the Group's mandate. Russia expected that the Review Conference would consider "most seriously" an agreement on a continuation of negotiations. Cuba said it, too, would have preferred a substantive text but accepted the decision in order not break the usual consensus on the resolution. Cuba stressed its commitment to the nearly decade-old effort to strengthen the BWC and to the AHG's mandate. It was "unfortunate" that the negotiations had been stalled by one of the Convention's depositary states. Cuba said it would work to ensure that any future measures would be developed and adopted in a multilateral context. Pakistan said it was "fully committed" to strengthening of the BWC, adding that the AHG should conclude its task. Pakistan was disappointed to see no resolution this year and hoped that this departure from past practice would "not be misinterpreted". Iran, regretting that only a decision had been tabled, acknowledged however that this could be seen as a "wise step" in difficult circumstances. Iran hoped that delegations could agree in Geneva how to complete the task that the AHG had been given. Some delegates have expressed fears that some of these more critical countries will continue to try to blame the United States for the AHG's failure to conclude the Protocol, endangering much-needed agreement on various issues at the Review Conference. These fears have further underscored the need for careful preparations.

Having adopted the BWC decision at the First Committee, and with the US proposals now in the public, delegations have begun their preparations for the Review Conference in earnest. Geneva diplomats are heading home in the middle of next week and it is expected that consultations there and between the different capitals will intensify significantly, peaking in the week prior to the Conference. For reports on further developments in the build-up to the Review Conference as well as during the Conference, please check http://www.acronym.org.uk/bwc.

Jenni Rissanen is the Acronym Institute's analyst monitoring the BWC AHG Protocol negotiations in Geneva. She is in New York from October 22 to November 9 to follow the deliberations of the UN First Committee on Disarmament and International Security. She will also attend the BWC Review Conference in Geneva, from November 19-December 7.